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Het zal mijn tijd wel duren

I won’t see the end of that, it will last my time[Dutch phrase of the week]
[het zal mijn tijd wel du-ren]

Literally ‘it will last my time’, you can use this phrase when the consequences of an event are not immediate but may be noticed after a long time, typically when it is no longer of concern to you and hence you don’t care about it. The phrase can also be used in general when you don’t care about the outcome of something because it doesn’t concern you much.

– “Maak jij je zorgen om de verhoging van de pensioenleeftijd?” – “Nee, het zal mijn tijd wel duren, tegen de tijd dat ik met pensioen ga is alles toch weer veranderd.” (“Are you worried about the increase of the retirement age?” – “No, I don’t care what they will eventually decide, by the time I retire everything will have changed again anyways.”)

– “Wat vind jij van de plannen van de gemeente om deze buurt op te knappen?” – “Het zal mijn tijd wel duren, ik verhuis binnen 5 jaar en ik vind het zoals het nu is best.” (“What do you think about the plans of the municipality to tidy up the neighbourhood?” – “I won’t see the end of that so I don’t care. I will move within 5 years and I think it’s fine the way it is now.”)

– “Ik vraag me af of de organisatie wel echt efficiënter gaat werken als de reorganisatie voltooid is. Maar goed, het zal mijn tijd wel duren want ik ga over twee jaar met pensioen.” (“I wonder whether the organization will really operate more efficiently once the reorganization has been completed. Anyways, I won’t see the end of that because I will retire in two years from now.”)

4 thoughts on “Het zal mijn tijd wel duren”

I love your work because it is detailed, funny, well thought out and thorough. I have been studying Dutch/Flams for a year and I have completed Assimil Dutch and Assimil Pratique Neerlandais but though they are excellent they are not as enjoyable as your lessons.

I have never been to The Netherlands or Belgium and I have only ever met one Dutch speaker and he was kind enough to let me read to him. He said I spoke Dutch with a German accent. This is because I obtained the Assimil courses from Germany.

I wish to thank you for all the pleasure you have given me and others who love the Dutch language.

I came back to this one: “Het schiet voor geen meter op met die metrotunnel!”. How does the meaning change if you write vóór instead of voor? What kind of word is ‘voor’ there, grammatically speaking (voorzetsel of bijwoord)? This often confuses me a lot…

Hi – I don’t think the meaning will change if you write ‘vóór’, however it would sound a bit strange. I think ‘voor’ is a preposition (voorzetsel) in this sentence, but I was unable to find an authoritative example of this specific usage.
A similar construction is used to say that something is ‘at the cost of’:
– Ik doe het ‘voor 5 euro’.
– Ik vertrouw je ‘voor geen cent’.
– Ik ga ‘voor geen goud’ een vliegtuig in!

But ‘voor geen meter’ doesn’t fit in the ‘cost’ category. Actually in this specific example you could also say ‘het schiet geen meter op’ since we are in fact discussing the covering of distance. But sometimes people also say ‘ik vertrouw je voor geen meter’, in which case you do need to use ‘voor’.